The Snail on the Slope

Peretz stroked his swelling finger and watched the pups. The children of the forest. Or maybe the servants of the forest. Or maybe the excrement of the forest... They moved slowly and tirelessly in single file, seeming to flow along the ground, streaming over rotten tree trunks, over the ditches, across the stagnant puddles, through the tall grass, and through the thornbushes. The trail would disappear, plunging into the fragrant mud or hiding beneath the layers of hard grey mushrooms that crunched under their wheels, then it would reappear again, and the pups kept to the trail and managed to remain clean, white, smooth - no dust clung to them, no thorn left a mark on them, and they didn't get covered in the sticky black mud. They flowed forward with dull, unreflecting confidence, as if following a familiar road, one they knew well. There were forty-three of them.
[...]
"I've noticed one thing," said Quentin. "The size of the litter is always a prime: thirteen, forty-three, forty-seven..."
"Nonsense," objected Stoyan. "I've met groups of six or twelve in the forest."
"That's in the forest," said Quentin. "After a while, they split off in different directions. But the number of pups in a litter is always prime - you can check the logbook, I recorded every number..."
"And one time," said Randy, "me and my pals caught one of the local girls - that was a hoot!"
"Well, then, write a paper," said Stoyan.
"I've already written it," said Quentin. "It'll be my fifteenth."
"I've published seventeen," said Stoyan, "and I have another one due to appear. Who's going to be your coauthor?"
"I don't know yet," said Quentin. "Kim recommends the garage foreman - he says that transportation is essential nowadays - and Rita suggests the hotel manager."